Date With Destiny Guide, Review and Inside Look!

I just got back from Tony Robbin's Date With Destiny have have a ton of share! This blog post is going to be a recap of what I learned, a review of if it was worth the $5,000 price tag, and a guide to those who are either wanting or planning to go to to the event! There was a ton of things I wish I knew before going to DWD that will help you get the most from the event, including, what to bring, what food to prepare, a schedule, which talks were most powerful and how to get the most from the event including if you should attend the cheaper, Unleash The Power Within event first or if you should skip it and go straight to DWD.

If you don't know what Date With Destiny if, or who Anthony Robbin's is, make sure you watch "I'm Not Your Guru" on Netflix first, then come back to this blog post to get the insider details from an attendee on who should attend, and how to get the most out of the intense 6 day event! I'm so excited to share this with you as I genuinely believe that the world would be a better, happier, and more loving place if everyone went to one of these, or at least learned the concepts that I'll be sharing in this blog post. Whether you are a go getter that wants to make the most out of your time on Earth, stay focused on the right path to success, or if you're on the other side and are sometimes depressed, on anti-depressants, or even if you are so down that you have thoughts of suicide, Tony Robbin's and Date With Destiny may change your life. Keep reading to find out how.

Who's It For?

We're really fortunate that director Joe Berlinger created the Netflix Documentary "I'm Not Your Guru" as it gave a really good insight on what Date With Destiny is all about. If you watch the movie and it wasn't for you at this time, good for you, maybe your life is currently so amazing that you don't need it as you already have everything you want are are walking through life with joy and love everyday. I'm genuinely happy for you if so. However if you watch it and either relate to some of the stories, think it would help you either gain perspective on your own life and problems, or if you're currently on antidepressants, then definitely 100% go to this event no matter what it takes. If you have any friends that aren't happy in their lives, whether they are super successful and still aren't happy, are having relationship problems, or are often depressed, I'd highly suggest they check it out as it could change their lives.

If you can't currently afford the $5,000 price tag to attend the event, or think it's a ridiculous amount of money to pay, I understand. I felt the same before I signed up and a few years ago, I never would have done it. But now that the event is over, I have no regrets and am super fortunate that I shifted my mindset, learned how to increase my income, and used the tools and knowledge that I learned over the years and shared inside my book Life Changes Quick to be able to afford experiences like this and do the things I know are good for me, even if they are expensive. They even have a super generous refund policy that I believe currently gives you a full refund on the 3rd night of the event if you go, give it a shot, and decide the rest isn't for you. But out of the thousands of people who attended, I think something like 99.8% of people stayed. I don't have a referral or an affiliate link to the event, but I think if you mention that you were referred by past attendee "Johnny Jen" you can get $500 off. I'll update this post with a link if I can get one. But either way, I genuinely believe the event was well worth the full price and meeting guys like Tony Tsaj who opted to sleep in his car for five months to save up enough money to attend told me that it was worth every second of it. Even though that's not what I'd personally want to do, his journey shows that if you want it bad enough, there's always a way.

Meeting Tony Tsaj and New Friends at Date With Destiny

How To Prepare:

After you commit and buy your ticket, you might still have a whole year before the event starts as he only does one DWD once in a year in the U.S. and once a year in Australia. So regardless if you have just a few months, or an entire year, it's good that you commit now as the event sells out, but also so you can have something to both look forward to as well as make preparations for. The best thing you can do ahead of time is to focus on your health and arrive in the best shape you can as not only are they long, exhausting 13 hour days which require a lot of jumping around with little food and little sleep, but also being in the best shape you can personally be in, is also a huge key to everything else in your life going well.

My suggestion is to follow something like the Whole30 book, or the Bulletproof Diet Book as a foundation to get in shape before you come. Or just follow the diet and exercise plan I was following a few years ago before I got derailed and was in the best shape of my life, called my common sense diet. Aside from exercise and eating healthy, just do the things that you already know you should be doing in life that make you healthier, happier, and a better state like yoga, meditation, practicing gratitude, quitting smoking, cutting out sugar, alcohol, and whatever else you already know you should do. Either way, those are things everyone should be doing if they want to thrive and be optimal. Date With Destiny will help you breakthrough some of the bullshit that has kept us from staying on track, and help us understand why many of us do things we know we shouldn't do like overeat, eat for comfort, smoke, drink, etc, but it's good to try to take control even before we go.

Here are a list of things that I personally brought with me to eat during the 6 Days at Date With Destiny as there are only two breaks during the entire week that are long enough to actually go out and get food. The rest of the time, you either snack in your chair, or buy something at the venue itself which usually consists of overpriced cold salads, burgers, and if you're lucky, hot soup.

A grocery store run on day zero, after registration

What to Eat:

I bought a bit too much food thinking I would finish it all, but combined with the Farm to Fork meals I preordered, and occasionally bringing some hot food with me because I just got tired of eating cold tuna, and raw veggies everyday, I ended up needing to throw out one of the jars of peanut butter, one pack of vegetables, and was left with extra tuna, and nuts. My suggestion is to bring enough food for just 8 meals, instead of the two a day for six days, as you won't eat 12 meals. Even though food isn't included with the seminar, Tony randomly surprises you with energy bars, quinoa wraps, and fruit during some of the days when it's running long, so you'll almost always end up with too much food if you over prepare.

As for water, they have plenty of refill stations so just bring a refillable water bottle with you. There is no microwave or hot water so be prepared to have everything cold. You can buy hot coffee, soup, cold salads and burgers at the event, but be prepared for long lines, so just bring it with you instead. The only official dinner breaks you'll get are on nights 5 and 6 of the event but even then, I only actually went out once for dinner on the last night as on night five, as I opted to stay in to focus on finishing the writing assignment instead. The only day I left to get lunch, I regretted it as I ended up being sleepy after digesting a big meal, it was hard to focus, which is a huge reason why Tony doesn't do many food breaks and encourages you to snack throughout the day when you're actually hungry instead.

Bring one less of everything here, but you get the point

What to Wear:

The biggest complaint of the event is how cold it is in the room. It's almost freezing, and coming from Thailand and the Canary islands, I hate the cold. However, I realized that he does it for a reason. It helps you stay awake, focused, and is all part of the physical struggle that actually helps you get out of your comfort zone and make breakthroughs. So instead of complaining it's cold, just come prepared for it being 55F/13C on most days, and sometimes colder without warning. Dress in layers are you'll be doing a lot of dancing, jumping around, and you'll sometimes get too warm.

The perfect setup for me was closed comfortable tennis shoes, full length socks, long underwear under my jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and light hoodie for most days, plus a scarf, beanie, and a slightly warmer jacket to layer on top for the warmer days. Even though you might see photos of people in t-shirts or even shorts, it's the exception as 98% of people were cold during the actual seminars when we're just sitting around, which often isn't photographed. The pictures we take are usually when it's warmer in the room or we're dancing around. Most of the time you'll be fine without too much clothes, but 100% of people I met were freezing at some point and wish they brought extra layers for those occasions.

Johnny in a Merino Wool Shirt + Tim Ferris in a Light Hoodie and Beanie

Tips for DWD:

Come prepared, bring a few pens with you, extra layers of clothes just in case, enough healthy food to keep you alive without getting too full, an open mind and heart to play full out and get the most out of the event, and most importantly, make sure you are fully present and immersed in the experience. The best thing I did for myself was set all of my vacation mode emails on autoresponder, assign all tasks to my VA, tell my friends and family I'd be out of reach for a week, and automate my online businesses where I could completely turn off my phone for 7 days and not only not have any major problems, but actually earn enough passive income during that week to cover a lot of the costs of the event itself.

Stay as close to the event venue as possible, and within 1.4 miles (2.2km) so you have the option to walk or take a short Taxi, Lyft (Lyft Coupon) or Uber (Uber Coupon) as often it'll be madness and 400X surges at the end of the night due to thousands of people leaving at once. It's best to stay at the host venue itself, but at $700+ a night, I was happy I stayed at the Holiday Inn 1.3 miles away and saved the cash. To save even more, I booked a hotel room ($165 a night) with two beds, then posted in the private event group (you'll get a link a few months before the event after you register), and found a random roommate to share with and split the costs. It was actually a great decision as not only did I save half of the room costs, it was also nice to have someone to debrief with every night, and share taxi costs with. Just make sure you talk on the phone with the person before agreeing to make sure you two get along, and don't be afraid to ask for a small $100 or so deposit to make sure they don't back out last minute.

Here's a podcast interview on the Travel Like a Boss Podcast Episode 184 I did with my roommate Michael on the last day of Date With Destiny where we talked about what we learned, what we got out of the event, and made some suggestions like first attending UPW (Unleash the Power Within) before signing up.

Lessons Learned:

For me the most important lessons learned are summarized in my destiny board below, but to be honest, as Tony says on day one, he's here not to fix anyone because we're not broken. He's not here to teach us anything we don't' already know. He's here to help guide us, and force us to confront the most uncomfortable parts of ourselves so we finally do the things we already know we should be doing in the first place. He teaches us to finally accept who we are, forgive ourselves and others, and to start taking 100% responsibility for our own lives and stop blaming others or outside factors. He reminds us that even though there are shitty people out there, and even if we aren't responsible for shitty things that happen to us, that we are responsible for how we live our lives after it happens. We don't always have control of what happened in our lives, trauma that we've experienced, or how we were raised, but we do have full control of how we allow it to affect us today, and in the future.

I know some of the concepts may seem simple, or that life is more complicated, or you may have even heard some of these things before, but the secret is that it doesn't matter if we understand it in our minds, the magic happens when we truly break free and start living it. For the first time, I truly understand the world around me and I've become a better man because of it. I genuinely believe that if everyone in the world went through this insane six day full immersion, there would be less hate, anger, resentment, and more joy, love, peace, and happiness in the world. If you don't agree, just go see for yourself, if after the 3rd day, you don't think it's worth the investment, just ask for a refund, they are super generous about them as they really want to see people benefit and aren't just doing it for the money. I would happily share more about what the lessons actually were, but to be honest, it would be a disservice to you as it's not just about the concept, it's about seeing it live in front of your face change someone in an instant who up until that point was suicidal. Meeting some of these people in person I can tell you with 100% certainty that nothing is staged, no one is an actor, and that the transformations and breakthroughs are real. I really hope everyone reading this gets to experience them yourself and make your own changes. I'll be updating this blog post after a few months after the high of the event wears off a bit, but I can already tell you that even sitting here in Los Angeles a few days after, I can already see the difference in my life and the way I interact and understand others.

My Date With Destiny Summary and Vision

Downsides to DWD:

The parts where Tony Robbin's are speaking are 10/10 and incredible. However, sadly the biggest downsides to the event are definitely the quality of some of the other trainers and speakers. On the second night, the walk and chant, although a great concept, was really poorly organized and took twice as long as necessarily which meant we lost another hour of possible sleep to do something we could have gotten the benefit from in 20 minutes, instead of the 1 hour due to a lot of waiting around and bottlenecks. Also the second biggest complaint many people had was the sales pitches on the mornings of days 4, 5, and 6, which were mostly of low value.

One of the speakers, Scott Harris was actually really good and gave a ton of great value even during the "upsell talks"which were worth sitting through as it was a both a good introduction to other Tony Robbin's programs for those interested, as well as good reminders of Tony's teachings in a softsell manner. Unfortunately, the other speaker Mike Melio didn't deliver enough value to keep the attention of most people. It seemed like half the room left when Mike came on stage, and even though he had an amazing personal story of going from broke to success follow Tony's teachings, his talk felt inauthentic and that he used his story more to hard sell than to inspire on what's possible while giving value. From what most other attendees I spoke to said, Mike's talk at UPW (Unleash the Power Within) was the same and wasn't valuable enough for repeat attendees to sit through the same story again. So even though I'm happy for him that he had personal success and am grateful for him wanting to share his story, I can see why a lot of people were turned off by his talk and how he could have improved it. There are other little things I can complain about, like the freezing cold room that was sometimes unnecessarily cold, even to a point where it was no longer helpful to keep us awake and focused. Or I could complain that I got more or less value from some of the talks than others. I could even complain that there are a ton of upsell courses including a $75,000 platinum membership. Some people even think of the group as a cult as they are so passionate.

But the truth is, Tony Robbin's is a genuine, authentic, and brilliant guy who truly changes the lives of others. If you go to the event, you'll learn what's possible in life, start to truly appreciate things we have already in our lives, and without going to any other events ever, or even going back again to refresh it in the future, he gives you all of the tools necessary in this one event to walk away a better, happier, and more successful person in life, relationships, and overall. It's on you whether or not you choose to sit through the talks you don't enjoy, if anything it's a great time to go out into the courtyard or hallways to meet and connect with other attendees. It's up to you whether or not you take everything you learned to apply it in your own life, or if you choose to buy the upsell programs. It's also up to you if you want to see the good in the world, the program, or if you want to focus on the negatives. If anything, that's the entire point of Date With Destiny, to realize that there is good and bad everywhere in the world, but it's mostly good, and that it's up to us to choose to focus on the good, and deal with the bad. I can say with 100% certainty that the event is 100% worth the price if you fully commit yourself to change, and don't expect anyone to do it for you.

Inside the Date With Destiny Event with Tony Robbins

Diamond vs. Standard Seating:

A lot of people have been asking me where to sit and if it's worth the upgrade price to have a Diamond seat. Firstly, I want you to rest assured that regardless of what seat you get, you'll great a great experience. In fact, I ended up spending a lot of the days standing in the back of the room and stretching out instead of sitting in my seat, event when I was near the front and center. Tony walks around the room a lot, and most of the time you'll be watching him on the TV screens to get a zoomed in close up shot, instead of trying to look at him in person anyways. That being said, having him live in the same room and being able to look up once in a while to see that he's actually there live talking to someone in the room makes it feel a lot more real. So they ever start offering seating in an overflow room like they do at UPW, I wouldn't advise that as it's not the same as being in the same room. In the past people would line up 3 hours early on the first day to secure the best seat for the entire event, but luckily, now that only applies to the first day of the event. At the end of Day 1, you're assigned a team, mine was "R7" and your team gets a different section everyday, sometimes in the front center, sometimes in the back left or right. I love that they started doing this.

That being said, the tickets are already expensive enough and there's no reason to stress yourself financially to upgrade. Rest assured that you can get everything you need from the standard ticket and you'll have an excellent experience regardless of where you sit. You don't need to upgrade to Diamond.

However, that being said, there are actually a lot of benefits of Diamond seating which is a mixture of rows 5 through 30 or so, behind the Platinum seats but still in the front part of the room. Even though Tony walks around the room a lot, he does spend the majority of the time in the front of the room and ends up choosing 70% of questions from the front sections. Being upfront does give you or someone in your group a higher chance of getting your question answered by Tony personally, but at the same time, it might be because when someone is in a really bad place in their lives, they will often do whatever it takes to pay for that chance. As mentioned in the article above, you don't need to have Tony talk to you personally to get benefit from DWD, if anything I got way more from hearing him help others than if he would have called on me. Another benefit is being in a group of other people who paid more for the event since everyone in your group has also paid the premium. That could be a mix of wealthy people, spoiled people, desperate for change people, and will change depending on the year, but it will be a self selecting group with it's pros and cons. Also your team leaders and trainers will generally be better as I'm sure Tony assigns the best trainers to the premium group.

That being said, is Diamond worth it? The answer is yes and no. It is better. But at 1.5x the price, that money could be better spent elsewhere as the standard tickets already give you everything you need. You could use that extra few thousand dollars to create or grow your business, buy books or courses, take a vacation, invest, or go to a future event. That being said, I bought a standard ticket and was 100% happy with my decision with no regrets, however I also see the benefits of paying for the upgrade, so the choice is yours. Whichever you choose, just do it for the right reasons. At the end of the day, being able to attend a Tony Robbin's event live is already great, regardless of where you sit.

Date With Destiny Seating

Overall Thoughts:

Date With Destiny was one of the best experiences of my life. My only regret was not going earlier in my life. I could have avoided years of self-doubt, bad habits, and focusing on the wrong things. Everyone's journey and paths are different, but if I knew what I know now about what makes us happy, depressed, love and hate, my life would be better today. I could have saved a few heartaches, breakups, and avoided a few mistakes I've made in the past, as well as just been a move loving person, and more true to myself.

Here is a video of me explaining a it all in a lot more details, along with some insider footage of some of the talk as well as some of the actual lessons I've learned from the event itself. Enjoy the video and feel free to ask me any questions below in the comments section.

2019 Update: I'm really excited that Tony Robbins has finally come out with a product that teaches people how to create value by packaging their knowledge and/or the skill sets and expertise of others around us into a business that's part of the $244 million dollar a day industry. He had a live class with marketer Dean Graziosi that you can watch the replay of here. Don't miss it.

Leave a comment below and let me know if you've gone, what take aways you've learned from the event, or if you haven't gone yet, what draws you towards it.

'"He teaches us to finally accept who we are, forgive ourselves and others, and to start taking 100% responsibility for our own lives and stop blaming others or outside factors. He reminds us that even though there are shitty people out there, and even if we aren't responsible for shitty things that happen to us, that we are responsible for how we live our lives after it happens." - kinda funny cuz I'm halfway through reading Mark Mason's "the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck" and this is pretty much the concept he goes through in his book as well.

Hi Johnny, I recently stumbled on your amazing review of Date With Destiny on YouTube. Thank you for this. I have been to Tony Robbins’ UPW and it was one of the amazing event. So good that I am taking my brother to it this year. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about date with Destiny-

1. I know this course is an advanced level of UPW. What are some of the practical tools you can apply in life from Date with Destiny?

2. The ticket price is high compare to UPW. Was it 100% worth going? Like an eye opener. I know my parents would think I am crazy to spend so much on it.

Hey Wagner, I'm glad you got a lot from the review and i'm glad you're taking your brother to UPW!

It's hard for me to say what the difference was between UPW and DWD as I skipped straight to the main event. But from talking to a bunch of other attendees who have been to both, they all said that UPW was more of the motivation and breakdowning down limited beliefs that you can change and be better, while DWD were the actual tools to do so.

I'd love to share with you the practical tools and lessons learned from DWD but honestly, it would be a disservice to you as it literally takes hours if not days to really understand the concept and the worst thing someone can do is read it and think, "I already knew that" or "makes sense" and move on. Hearing it at DWD from Tony really makes it work. For me it was worth the $5,000 but only because I was ready to accept 100% personal responsibility and actually do the things he taught. For others, they'll slip back into their normal routine and think they need to go back to another Tony event every year.

Please take a second to log in before you comment. I've turned off the anonymous commenting option. I'm open and respectful with you, please be the same back. Stay positive, trolls and spam comments will be automatically deleted.

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